User manual APPLE RAID UTILITY

[. . . ] RAID Utility User's Guide Instructions for setting up RAID volumes on a computer with a MacPro RAID Card or Xserve RAID Card. 1 Contents 3 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 9 9 10 13 14 15 16 RAID Utility User's Guide Installing the RAID Software Running RAID Utility Setting Up RAID Volumes Migrating an Existing Volume to a RAID Volume Creating a RAID Set Creating a Volume Setting Up a Spare Drive Reverting a Spare Drive Deleting a Volume or RAID Set Solving Problems Using the Command Line About RAID Levels Using Non-RAID JBOD Disks Setup Examples 2 1 RAID Utility User's Guide This guide shows you how to set up RAID volumes using the RAID Utility application on a computer with a Mac Pro RAID Card or Xserve RAID Card. With a Mac Pro RAID Card or Xserve RAID Card installed in your computer, you can use RAID Utility to turn your computer's internal disks into storage volumes based on RAID (redundant array of independent disks) schemes that improve performance and protect your data. Installing the RAID Software If you purchased your computer with a RAID card installed, the RAID software is already installed on your startup disk and RAID Utility is in /Applications/Utilities/. RAID Utility is also available from the Utilities menu when you start up your computer using the Mac OS X installation disc that comes with the computer. 3 Running RAID Utility The RAID Utility application is in /Applications/Utilities/. You can open it from there anytime you want to check the status of the RAID components in your computer. You can also run RAID Utility from the Installer when you start up your computer using the Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server installation disc that comes with the computer. [. . . ] 2 Click Delete Volume or Delete RAID Set. 10 Solving Problems The following paragraphs may help you identify or solve a problem you're having with your RAID volumes. Checking the Status of RAID Components You can use RAID Utility to check the status of the RAID card, its battery, your RAID volumes, and the disk drives and RAID sets they are built on. Overall status Click to clear event List of events To check the status of a component: 1 Open RAID Utility. 2 Click an item in the component list on the left side of the window. You can also check RAID component status using System Profiler. Choose About This Mac from the Apple menu and click More Info. Then select Hardware RAID under Hardware in the Contents list. System Profiler is also available in /Applications/Utilities/. Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) status information for disks is available only for SATA drives. 11 Reviewing Event Messages RAID Utility keeps a list of events related to the current state of the RAID card, RAID volumes, and their components. 2 Click Status, under Controller, in the list on the left side of the window. To erase an event, click the button in the Clear column. Verifying a RAID Set You can use the Verify RAID Set command to confirm that data stored on a RAID 1, RAID 0+1, or RAID 5 volume is protected. The performance of the RAID set and any volume based on it is degraded during verification. To verify a RAID set: 1 Open RAID Utility. 2 Select the RAID set in the list on the left side of the window. If the verification process reports problems, you can use the command $ raidutil modify volume --rewrite in Terminal to recreate the volume's data protection information. For information, see the raidutil man page or type raidutil at the command-line prompt. If Write Caches are Disabled The RAID card backup battery may not be fully charged. To protect your data, the RAID card automatically disables write caching whenever the battery is not fully charged. Once every three months the RAID card reconditions the battery by completely discharging and then recharging it. If the Battery is Not Fully Charged Every three months, the RAID card automatically reconditions its battery by completely discharging and then recharging it. During the reconditioning cycle, you may see an alert advising you that the 72-hour battery reserve is unavailable and the controller status may indicate that write caches are disabled. Performance may be slightly degraded during this time, but will return to normal when the battery is recharged. To check battery status: 1 Open RAID Utility. If you are using SAS drives, SMART is listed as unsupported in the drive information in RAID Utility. 13 Viewing the RAID System Log If you have trouble with your RAID configuration, you can check the diagnostic messages in the RAID log for more information. The RAID card and associated software write status and diagnostic messages to /Library/Logs/CoreRAID. log. To view the RAID log: 1 Open the Console application (in /Applications/Utilities/). [. . . ] With RAID 5, roughly one drive's worth of the space is dedicated to parity data, so the usable space on the volume in this example will be roughly equivalent to the total capacity of the three remaining disks. To set up this example: Start up the computer using the Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server installation disc that comes with the computer. When the first Installer pane appears, you choose your language and click Next. When the menu bar appears, you choose Utilities > RAID Utility and then choose the Migrate RAID Set command. [. . . ]